{"id":37893,"date":"2017-02-17T23:23:42","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T17:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org\/?p=37893"},"modified":"2017-02-17T23:23:42","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T17:53:42","slug":"sri-aurobindos-interaction-american-soldier-world-war-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=37893","title":{"rendered":"Sri Aurobindo\u2019s interaction with an American soldier during World War II"},"content":{"rendered":"

By – Sandeep<\/strong>
\nOne night, holed up in a trench in France during World War II, Sgt. John Kelly of the US Army (Easy Company, 276th Infantry Regiment, 70th<\/sup> Infantry) began\u00a0 having spectacular visions of two beings of Light whom he called \u2018Great Sir\u2019 and \u2018Heaven Lady\u2019.\u00a0 Their continuing guidance through visions and voices saved him from enemy fire a few times.\u00a0 After the war, John found a copy of Sri Aurobindo\u2019s The Life Divine<\/em><\/a> in a library, and then came across a photograph of the Mother Mirra Alfassa.\u00a0 At this point, he realized that the two Beings who had guided him during the war were Sri Aurobindo and the Mother Mirra Alfassa.\u00a0 He visited the Ashram in Pondicherry in 1966 and met the Mother.\u00a0 In this article, he recounts his experiences from the war.\u00a0 This article first appeared in the Spring\/summer 1984 issue of the Collaboration journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sgt. John Kelly (source: Maggi Lidchi-Grassi\u2019s \u201cGreat Sir and the Heaven Lady\u201d.\u00a0 Click image for amazon book-page)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

(The rest of the article is in the words of John Kelly. )
\nI had no knowledge of yoga. I quit high school in my second year after the football season to earn money\u2026 the family was in poor circumstances. When I became 18, I was drafted into the army. In a very short period of time I was in France in the infantry, and we went into the attack, surprisingly, I found out later, on Mother\u2019s birthday in February of 1945, the closing months of WWII. France was still occupied by Germany, and this was the time of the Battle of the Bulge<\/a> and Bastogne. We were replacements for a lot of people who had fallen in those battles. So we were in this town of Faubourg. After fierce fighting in the town, I don\u2019t know if it was one or two days into the battle, day and night, hit by rockets from 15-20 miles called \u201cscreaming meemies<\/a>\u201d \u2026 all sorts of terrible noise \u2026 Anyway, because of one of those rockets that could flip you up in the air and toss you like a flapjack, I must have opened up. The head must have opened to these frequencies \u2026 That might be one possible explanation.
\nWe were in a zigzag trench down this mountain which was a graveyard from the first World War, I had heard that from the Napoleonic wars there were people buried there \u2026 There were crosses. We were near a wood road up in the forest. The original company had been wiped out almost to a man \u2026 as far as I know. There were German and American bodies lying on the field amid the pine trees. It was a big jungle of torn-up trees and earth.
\nI had the first vision there. You know, they say there\u2019s no atheist in a foxhole, well, I wanted to see\u2026 I thought I was going to be on the other side any minute. So I said,\u201dLet\u2019s get there first!\u201d\u00a0 It was about the only thing worth trying for. I had heard from my childhood brought up in a Catholic school of people who had some kind of transformation vision and experience. God or the angels could descend and enlighten you, you see. So here\u2019s the situation: a cemetery, all these dead from past wars, I in another \u2018plot\u2019, alive\u2026they haven\u2019t thrown the dirt in on top of me \u2013 that\u2019s the only difference between me and these fellows. I said, \u201cWhat the hell is this all about?\u201d I\u2019m a person a little thick. To bring something home to me you practically have to hit me on the head, and this was that type of situation \u2026and I found out in India that experiences happen in graveyards. So I was in a psychological state. Believe me. Desperation.
\nAfter some time, one day, two days, god knows, it was freezing up there, the middle of winter. Time stood still.
\nFinally one night late there was nobody near me\u2026 I saw a wisp of white smoke in front of me, a little whiff of smoke, like cigarette smoke. Little sparks of light started to emanate out of that little wisp. It was moving to my right from \u2018noman\u2019s land\u2019 . my eyes were fastened on it like a rabbit\u2019s.\u00a0 The smoke kept growing and turned into a haze, and the sparks coming out of it were enormous. My mind was working feverishly, very rapid \u2026 so \u2026 out of that came a bubbling laughter, gentle laughter of a wise old man. It came out like champagne, and actually I heard the \u2018ppp\u2019 of a bottle and the fizz. That effervescent sound with the light in front of me became a delightful fascination. And frightening.\u00a0\u00a0 The laughter kept getting louder, in my head perhaps. I don\u2019t know. But it was very gentle and very wise, and suddenly I see a mouth and a beard start to form, then the eyes, and the eyes sent out this light that hit me, and I fell back in the hole.\u00a0 I said, \u201cOh god. \u00a0\u00a0I think I struck pay dirt here.\u201d
\nThe laughter continued. I felt a bubbling in my stomach. A buoying of my spirits, you see. Suddenly the voice says (low), \u201cWhat is it you wish, my child?\u201d It had the accent of a high Englishman. Here I am from Brooklyn. I said, \u201cOh my god (my father was a rebel) \u2026 God is an Englishman.\u201d I thought, \u201cWhat am I gonna say to God?\u201d I pinched myself. \u00a0I said, \u201cJesus, I\u2019m making this up in my head.\u201d \u00a0No, it was real. I\u2019m awake and this is happening.\u00a0 (note: Sri Aurobindo used to speak with a British accent because he was educated in England from the age of seven to twenty-one.)<\/em>
\nSo the first thing I thought of was, \u201cGet me the hell out of here \u2026 take me to Paris where I can sit down, drink some wine, and dance with the girls.\u201d This is a serious situation, but at the same time I was completely delirious. There was some kind of spirit there. I wasn\u2019t lonely, if I got killed now I didn\u2019t give a damn. There was a certain inner delight about the whole relationship that occurred. So I said, \u201cI\u2019ve got to think of something sensible to say, so I said, \u201c\u2018Great Sir,\u201d that\u2019s what I called him because everyone\u2019s Sir in the army. So I said,\u201dO great Sir, all I really wish is \u2026 to know.\u201d So he laughed, and I ducked down because I didn\u2019t want to get hit with that light in the head. I wouldn\u2019t look at his eyes because of the force that came emanating out.
\nThe laughter was one of the most incredible things of tone value that I had ever heard. What I felt was that the laughter itself was talking to me. Now, you see, there is such a thing as mocking laughter, hilarious laughter, you can laugh every way. You can laugh, you know, for all kinds of reasons. There\u2019s a whole vocabulary of laughter that I became attuned to and the nuances of the laughter. There was a whole thing we were going through as if this wasn\u2019t the first time it had happened.
\nI thought, \u201cI\u2019d better not say anything more or I\u2019ll get in trouble.\u201d So he said, \u201cIf my help you choose then your religion you will lose.\u201d I thought, \u201cAha, I\u2019ve got the devil!\u201d But then I didn\u2019t care at this point about religion or whether it was hell or heaven I was going to as long as I went. I mean, I was brought up a Catholic, but I never really had Christ in me. I was given a label like a Democrat or Republican. It was on the surface of my being. So I said to him, \u201cYou know, I don\u2019t have a religion in that sense, the true sense of having the founding force of a religion. You have to give it to me.\u201d I was begging for spirit. And I was putting the ball in his court . . . I got the ball across the net, you see. That\u2019s all it amounted to for me. Like a pingpong game. I ducked down waiting for his reply and suddenly the laughter stops. \u201cOh, oh,\u201d I thought, \u201cI said the wrong thing.\u201d But then I looked up and standing there in front of me, on the battlefield, was the full figure, a man with a white beard and white hair hanging down in a sheet like a Roman emperor. He\u2019s leaning against this tree a little bit, and he\u2019s signing to my left. I don\u2019t know if the moon was out that night, but the light on his face was golden. You could see a certain kind of refinement in this being that was extraordinary, an aesthetic face that really doesn\u2019t show up in his photographs at all. There was suffering and the conquering of suffering. All of that was there.
\nSo as I look to the left, out of the forest I see a waffling motion and something moving down like a big platform zipping in, like a UFO long before I ever heard of those things. It moved and set itself. It was a Greek temple like those small Parthenon-type things with four columns. People sit on them in wicker chairs and have tea. That kind of set-up. And there was a lady lying down! I said, \u201cOh, this is a fairy tale. This is ridiculous, delightful.\u201d She\u2019s on a big divan with a black housecoat of velvet. The columns of this thing are like luminescent light, like a very high quality neon light . . . it reminded me of alabaster, radiant soft light . . . indirect lighting . . . the supreme in indirect lighting
\nI look, and there she is sitting in a pose exactly as we see her in those old photographs of 1914. I came to learn over the years that this pose was like the mudra<\/a><\/em> of the Greek goddess of wisdom. So I\u2019m in this trench, and it seemed like I was on the steps of the temple looking up at her. Her face changed . . . it was a long nose. . . very much Mother. And then that same face said, \u201cI am Mother, Mother, Mother, Mother. I am all Mothers.\u201d The face kept changing like a strobe light effect. That face changed and changed constantly and then would come back and rest at that face again.
\nI was absolutely enchanted. It was extraordinary. With that it\u2019s getting very heavy on my head. My head is really singing. I said, \u201cListen, sweetheart, you\u2019d better remove that thing, that temple, from the field of battle because we\u2019re having a hell of a time here.\u201d She didn\u2019t want to go. \u00a0I said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t go soon I won\u2019t have anything in my head. I\u2019ll be insane . . . with delight.\u201d So reluctantly it faded away into the gloom. Then I was so happy I did a somersault or maybe I fainted, I don\u2019t know. I collapsed. The next thing I recall is a soldier saying, \u201cHey, Kelly, get up. Wake up. We\u2019re going off of this hill. We\u2019ve been relieved.\u201d This was dawn, I think.\u00a0 The place was always so overhung with clouds you didn\u2019t know what it was.
\nAs we go down I start to recall what happened, and I hear two guys talking behind me. One says to the other, \u201cDid you see the light on the hill last night?\u201d \u201cYeah, wasn\u2019t that something.\u201d They saw it too! That thing was like a 3-D manifestation. It kept growing from those wisps of smoke. I thought, \u201cI\u2019ve got to forget this.\u201d But everytime there was a bombardment all I did was think about her, sitting in that temple. And I said, \u201cGee, I wonder who she is.\u201d
\nAnother day goes by, and suddenly I hear the old man in the sky. You see, I used to walk behind my men-they made me a sergeant for a few days because all the others were sick or wounded or whatever.\u00a0 Anyway, the old man says to me, \u201cThat underpass is gonna be hit.\u201d There was a train overpass that we had to go under, and he almost gives me the picture of the bombardment occurring.\u00a0 So I ran down to the Lieutenant and said, \u201cWhere are we going?\u201d I was stalling. He showed me the map and a German headquarters building on the other side of the underpass. That\u2019s where we were going. I tried to convince him to go another way but he wouldn\u2019t listen.
\nSo I went back to my men, and then the old man in the sky says, \u201cTake your men and go first.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat? Now you want me to go first?\u201d There I was, cringing and cowardly, trying to find another way out. Anyway he convinced me to go first and quickly. So I went and told the Lieutenant that we would go first. He says, \u201cYou will?\u201d
\nWe ran down the hill like a track team through the underpass and the idea was not to stop until we got to the building. And we did. They shot at us. We shot back. As soon as we closed the door the whole goddam place exploded. But they didn\u2019t hit that building. It was their own building. There was nobody in it, thank god. When the smoke cleared we looked, and there was nobody back there. The whole platoon was gone. Well, they had gone around just like I thought we should.
\nAnyway, the contact was constant. He was giving directions, and I was always refusing to accept them. And he was like a periscope.\u00a0 He could look around. He could see in the distance where it was safe and where we should go. That was very beneficial to me. But still, you can have your father take you by the hand and lead you into the candy store, and still you\u2019re gonna be disgruntled. I was disgruntled. Though I was in a very advantageous position with having such a guide. Still, the gloom. At least I had somebody to complain to!
\nWell, the war ended. We got through the Siegfried line and through the concentration camps. Eventually we got up along the border with the Russians. We were now the occupation army. Anyway, I was trying to figure all this out.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know about bi-location<\/a> you see, that masters do exist and have existed through the ages, and that he and she were of that class, that order of beings. I had put them in the class of god, the devil, and the holy ghost, beings of another world, when, in fact, they were living beings on our own earth. That\u2019s the real significance of this story.
\nI asked Mother these things specifically later on when I got to India. She said that it was as if the day the World War started the telephone exchange slowly and invisibly-like an enormous box-came down slowly and settled on her. And with that box, it made all kinds of sounds like \u201ctu-tu-tu-tu\u201d, like a telephone exchange, that\u2019s the word she used. She was, in a sense, plugged in to all these distress calls from all over the battlefields of the world. Anybody that was in jeopardy or peril ..would be calling, and sometimes she would faint, in the schoolyard, the playground, or she would go into a trance and there was no stopping it or controlling it. And there was no remembering it because it was constant. She was part of that hookup. Higher emanations were going out of her in all directions-that was what was given to her as a work, and she said the happiest day of her life was the day the war ended, and the box went back up again.
\nSo, after a while I came back from the line, and I was in this building. Now the tension from all this had built up in my body, all the confusion and craziness and these visions. I was like a taut wire, but it was occult-I had no control over it. That wire was so high strung-I thought that I was insane, you know. I was out in no-man\u2019s -land and no-mind\u2019s land. That\u2019s a strange place, not knowing that there is such a place and that you can get accustomed to it.
\nI had other visions. I saw an old guy with a pipe who I later thought must have been Carl Jung. I saw a priest, a big tough looking guy, big black beard, pirate eyebrows, but very sweet, and I told him I wanted to see that woman again, and he said that he would speak to her.
\nIt just kept building up and up, and finally I dropped dead right on the bed. The heart stopped, and I go out of my head. All of this force goes right out of the top of my head, but I was still coherent and the Sri Aurobindo came. There was a flame shot around the room-it was the psychic plane, that dimension. That was a magic circle or something, and up through the magic circle we go. He tells me to stay on his heels and not to look right or left. Out we go into the night sky over Germany, headed towards Switzerland, out towards Italy, down towards Rome. At the same time, there are all sorts of besieging entities on all sides trying to come at us in this plane. Ghosts and otherworldly beings trying to make contact and send messages to this world. But I was told not to look right or left. Finally we broke out of that world, that gloom world, into the night sky. It seemed to be the physical night sky-I can\u2019t tell you for sure. We headed out over the Mediterranean Sea and got to Egypt and saw the sands of Egypt turning to dawn. By the time we hit the coast of India it was daylight, and I\u2019m in the Ashram on the floor and there are these chintzy pink clouds on the floor! (note: this is a description of John\u2019s out-of-body experience; the subtle body exited out of the head as he entered a cataleptic trance.)
\n<\/em>
\nHe\u2019s sitting in his chair. Mother\u2019s over there. But these clouds! I was hitting the floor. What are they doing there?\u00a0 He was smiling and laughing. \u201cDo you know what an ashram is?\u201d he says. I didn\u2019t know, but I bluffed. So we\u2019re in the Ashram and talking, and I found out I could go over \u2026 to past lives, and I found out I\u2019d been in ashrams before, in past lives. Then he told me certain things, and we had a whole series of visionary experiences in other planes as he mentions in Savitri<\/a>. Finally I came back to the bed, the heart started up and the cataleptic trance left-that\u2019s actually what I was in, a cataleptic trance.
\nI\u2019m so deliriously happy when I wake up. I remember looking out the window-there was a drunken soldier coming up the road with a bottle of wine in his hand singing a dirty song, and that was spiritual! It was under the haze of dawn light, and this debauched guy was some part of this spiritual atmosphere in some mysterious manner.
\nI wake up. I get dressed and a hush falls on the room. I knew the old man was back, and, there, coming through the wall, there he is sitting in the chair, and the Mother is with him but less visible. So I stand straight like a soldier. He\u2019s very benevolent.\u00a0 There\u2019s wonderful force, emanation, and circles radiating out, seas of bliss and light and joy all coming out. \u00a0And this enormous benevolence.
\nI had said I wonder who he is, this wonderful being who had helped me through the war all this time to get me through these states and give me these experiences and he moves his head he picked it right up and he says to me (hardly audible), \u201cSri Aurobindo\u201d\u00a0 I said,\u00a0 \u201cAuro?\u201d He says, \u201cAu .. ro .. bin .. do.\u201d He\u2019s smiling, almost ready to burst out laughing. He can hardly contain himself. He\u2019s breaking up.
\nI said, \u201cOK, Aurobindo. What is that? Is that a password? You and me got a password?\u201d Basically he says yes. \u00a0I never heard a word like that. Then Mother said to me, \u201cCome to Pondicherry.\u201d I thought, \u201cI\u2019m supposed to go to a place very far away?\u201d It was much farther than today everybody still went by ship then \u2013 I wasn\u2019t that clear.\u00a0 Bringing it over to the physical mind, when there wasn\u2019t that much there, wasn\u2019t an easy choice.\u00a0 My associations and relationships took half a lifetime \u2026 truly.
\nIt wasn\u2019t meant to be either.\u00a0 I told them I had to help my mother. She was sick, and the old mans\u2019s a bum and he\u2019s drinking, and I\u2019ve got to stay to take care of the family. He understood and said he understood. \u201cYou will come in twenty years,\u201d he said.
\nI went back to America, became a fireman in New York City retired from that after my mother passed away. She died in 1965. A year later I went off to India and saw Mother. She was very happy. We had a lovely relationship. I met other people who had seen Sri Aurohindo like I had, in the war or someplace in the world. That was a big boost. As long as someone else had seen him then I knew I was in the right group. I got there too late to see Sri Aurobindo in the body .. but his darshan<\/a> is always there.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/a>

John Kelly (second from left) in later years at an Aurobindo group retreat named Matagiri which is located in Mt Tremper, NY. (source: http:\/\/www.matagiri.org\/downloads\/matagiri40birthday.pdf)<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Further reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n

This story also appeared in the book God shall grow up Body, Soul,& Earth Evolving Together<\/em><\/a> by Wayne Bloomquist.\u00a0 You can read it at google books<\/a>.
\nMaggi Lidchi-Grassi, who lives in Auroville<\/a>,\u00a0 interviewed John Kelly and wrote a book based on the interview called Great Sir and the Heaven Lady<\/em>.\u00a0 See (amazon<\/a>) (google books<\/a>) (SABDA<\/a>)
\nThis article was originally published at Blog Auromere.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By – Sandeep One night, holed up in a trench in France during World War II, Sgt. John Kelly of the US Army (Easy Company, 276th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry) began\u00a0 having spectacular visions of two beings of Light whom he called \u2018Great Sir\u2019 and \u2018Heaven Lady\u2019.\u00a0 Their continuing guidance through visions and voices saved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1994],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37893\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}